Hector Garcia-Molina

databases are boring. that's a huge reason the book got few stars from me, so keep that in mind. in its favor are a few key features. it certainly is complete. the theoretical aspects of database design, sql and the practice of implementing a database schema, concurrency control, and the more general task of large information management - all of these are included and more. and in fact, the chapters and sections are divided into adequately (although maybe overly) small bite size pieces made for easy reading. examples are provided as necessary, but nearly never cover many of the more frequent cases.

in general, i find it overshot its attempt at readability and at the same time remained difficult to understand at times. certainly NOT a good reference book, unless after having read large portions beforehand.… (mer)